Question

Does a free good mean any good I get for free? What if I was fishing with a hand-made fishing net and caught a fish. Is that considered a free good? I didn't have to pay for it and I didn't use anything that I had bought. The Native Americans used to find all their food and water and didn't pay for it. Were they free? What makes a good "free" in economics? Can you think of a good that is not scarce? If no, why?

Answer 1

Does a free good mean any good I get for free?

There is no good, either man-made or natural, that is free. Everything involves either an explicit or an implicit cost.

It is just that some goods are non-rival and non-excludable to a large extent. This means, that they are quite abundant and do not carry an explicit cost.

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What if I was fishing with a hand-made fishing net and caught a fish. Is that considered a free good? I didn't have to pay for it and I didn't use anything that I had bought.

No, this is not a free good. The activity involves spending time on fishing. Further, the hand-made net also has to be made, which requires time and resources. Though no money was paid, but there are implicit costs of time, resources and energy.

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The Native Americans used to find all their food and water and didn't pay for it. Were they free?

There were no major explicit costs involved in this activity.

However, even they required tools and techniques, which may have carried an initial cost. They also used time and energy, which carry an opportunity cost. Hence, it was not truly free.

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What makes a good "free" in economics? Can you think of a good that is not scarce? If no, why?

A good can be considered truly free if it has zero explicit and implicit costs. It has no price, and no other opportunity cost.

Some people consider "air" to be a free good. However, with the current levels of pollution and congestion in cities, people have to install air-purifiers just to breathe. Hence, there is no good that is completely free.

Due to human greed, there is no good left that is completely abundant and non-rival. Perhaps, one may argue that "sunlight" is abundant, but we still require solar panels to harness solar energy - and solar panels are not free.

Thus, whether a good is "free" or not depends on how abundant it is, and whether there are any explicit and implicit costs associated in utilizing it.